Dad plays survival, a new base

I'm an old guy (nearly 50!) who has been playing minecraft for several years (since 1.3.2). I decided to take some pictures and post them in a thread as I build up a base. I'm playing on a vanilla survival server I've set up for my family (my wife and kids play on it too) but I've found an area some distance away from our original base and am setting up a new one. We started this particular world right after 1.14 came out and it has been updated to 1.15.2.

The server seed is: -6568163216085881591

The first picture shows the area I'm going to build in. The picture is taken from coordinates 496, 100, -860.

Glad to see another journal on here - we don't see enough content like this nowadays I don't find! I feel similarly about the game - have been playing on the same world for seven years. When you don't lose inspiration, creativity always flows.

The diagonal staircase is actually quite interesting - almost hypnotic, I might add. Looking forward to seeing the world blossom.

Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack

LP series? Not my style! Video series? Closer, but not quite. Survival journal, maybe? That's better. Now in Season 3 of the Legends of Quintropolis Journal (<< click to view)!! World download and more can be found there.

Glad to see another journal on here - we don't see enough content like this nowadays I don't find! I feel similarly about the game - have been playing on the same world for seven years. When you don't lose inspiration, creativity always flows.

The diagonal staircase is actually quite interesting - almost hypnotic, I might add. Looking forward to seeing the world blossom.

I've done a number of different mineshaft types including a straight drop to the bottom. However, I've got a mining pattern that works quite nicely with this type of diagonal staircase.

Some years ago I came across a mining pattern thread called "Phoenix X" or something like that. It looked like this:

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The original thread still exists but the pictures have all disappeared. I had to create this one from memory using Excel.

Basically, you start with a square in the middle, then dig straight tunnels counting only to 3 or 6. At the end of each one, you dig a single-high tunnel and place a torch to indicate the end of the previous tunnel so when you get to that point, you count 6 again and turn again, etc. I hope you can see the pattern because explaining it is difficult. I've indicated where you would put the single hole tunnels with the lighter colored gray.

The beauty of this pattern is that it can be expanded quite a ways, making longer wings each iteration and you're never far from the center.

So, I took this idea, and modified it by increasing the size of the central square, and making each count 6 & 12 as depicted in the following graphic. I also layered them so I can have multiple levels in my mine and still find most of the ore without digging as much cobblestone.

I hope you can get the idea from this graphic. Also, you can see how the stairs match nicely on a diagonal going down into the mine and through each level.

So, here are some pictures showing my mine in action. First, from near the bottom looking back at the stairway:

Notice this is at the top of bedrock. I keep a water source here since I find a lot of lava at these levels.

Looking back up the stairs. Notice the different colored stairs, indicating each point where I can start another level:

In one of the side channels where you can see a channel on the next level:

Looking down from "level 8" to "level 5":

Notice I had to modify the starting square slightly to accommodate the stairs going down through the middle.

Finally looking down from "level 11" to the bottom and showing my item ladder where I can put my ore and cobblestone and it is automatically carried to the top where I will be putting an item sorter.

In my next post I'll show how the item ladder works and the sorter at the top.

As promised, here are some pictures showing the "item ladder" and redstone circuits that make it work.

First, a side view of the mechanism showing a chest that takes the items in, a hopper that puts them in a dropper which outputs to another dropper all the way to the top. Beside that is a redstone torch that will activate the droppers when it turns off and on. Note there is another redstone torch above that, all the way to the top. Finally to the right, you can see two hoppers pointing into one another with a piece of cobblestone in them that goes back and forth to activate the droppers.

The next picture is from farther back looking the same direction. Here you can see a "latch" that holds the signal "on" until all the items have moved to the top. This picture is taken while everything is off and nothing is moving. On the left you can see a set of three repeaters, one pointing into the side of the other. This is a "trailing edge detector" that sends a signal when the last item has been removed from the bottom dropper.

This next picture looks the opposite way, showing the "latch", the "trailing edge detector" on the right, and a bank of repeaters that delay the signal until the last item has reached the top.

Here is a picture when the circuits are activated, sending items to the top.

Finally, here's the "clock" activated, changing the redstone torch on and off. The main point of this one is you can see the redstone torch under the nearest hopper on the right is off which is what causes everything to actually start functioning.

In my next post, I'll show pictures at the top where the items are sorted. I've only started that part, partly because the sorter takes a LOT of iron due to having a lot of hoppers.

First, here is a broader view of the topside showing the "sorter building" starting to grow.

Now, for the top of the "item ladder".

Notice the top of the droppers feed directly into a hopper pipe. The first "item sorter" is for cobblestone because I get a ton of it so it needs more space than a single chest. You can see the stack of chests below in the next picture.

In case you don't know how the item sorter works, here's another picture of the first that will eventually be a whole row of them.

This may not be the best picture since you can't see all the components. In the nearest trench is a repeater. In the trench further away a redstone torch is attached to the block in between underneath the hopper.

In case you hadn't figured this building out, it is going to be quite large. I intend to have 4 rows of 32 of these sorters over two layers. It will take a LOT of iron and I may never completely finish all the sorters anyway, but I like to keep plenty of room to grow.

Part of the reason for having so much room is because they keep adding 16 color options to so many blocks so to accommodate for all the options, I need lots of space. Also, if I need to, I could add more layers above.

Not a lot of things to show otherwise so I thought I'd share my "zombie proof" door system with you. Since I always play on "hard" mode, I have to keep zombies from breaking my doors. Having a pressure plate between the door and the gate means I never have to worry about closing either one when I go through and I simply have to click on the nearest one to open it when I want to go through.

Nice job here so far, and yeah that's going to be a healthy amount of iron. Are you planning to sort every block/item in the game? One hell of a project so be sure, but I imagine it will be nice and convenient once it's done.

Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack

LP series? Not my style! Video series? Closer, but not quite. Survival journal, maybe? That's better. Now in Season 3 of the Legends of Quintropolis Journal (<< click to view)!! World download and more can be found there.

Nice job here so far, and yeah that's going to be a healthy amount of iron. Are you planning to sort every block/item in the game? One hell of a project so be sure, but I imagine it will be nice and convenient once it's done.

I don't know how many items are even in the game. And they do keep adding more so who knows. Part of the idea is to have room to hold most of the items in the game, at least those that aren't very limited in number. It would be hard to try to sort things like wither heads without killing an awful lot of withers, and stuff like that. The main point is to be able to sort most things I accumulate as I wander around the world and want to dump inventory.

The changes today aren't quite as dramatic and may not even be obvious unless I point them out. Notice a couple of windows are gone from the little addition on the right. I've added a second, smaller, item ladder.

I wanted to be able to send items into the sorter from the ground level. Also, it might come in handy later if I add a farm so I can automate the sorting of those items as well.

Notice the top of a chest by the head of the bed.

The mechanism for the item ladder are just a level below.

There's an extra chest down here as well where I store extra dirt because I had a ton of it digging this room.

I also modified my sorter a bit. The second level takes more hoppers, and thus more iron. With the modifications, I now need two fewer hoppers than before saving a lot of iron.

First, the "before" picture from above, followed by the "after" picture.

Notice I new have a chest at the top and the barrel is one level higher.

Here's a front view:

Next I hope to work on some farms for animals and food. I need more leather from cattle for the signs indicating what is in each barrel of the sorter.

First a night shot with the sheep farm in it along with a couple of other farms as well.

And here's a closer view of just the sheep pens, without the sheep. There are 16 pens, one for each possible color. I only barely started collecting some and/or breeding them. I haven't even tried to get all the different colors to start dyeing them.

And here's a closer look at the other farms. The far one with the trees growing will be a "tree farm" although all it does is collect the saplings once the tree is cut down.

Now I need to get some more bows to create the dispensers for the "tree farm". It turns out that I just found an abandoned mineshaft with a skeleton spawner in it. It looks like I'll have plenty of bows from that once I turn it into an experience farm. That will be the next post.

As promised, here are some pictures from the skeleton spawner, and turning it into an experience farm and source for tons of bows, arrows, bones, and armor.

First, the spawner as it was found (after torches were added)

Then I started digging around it:

The design I used is one that can be found on various YouTube videos. You can see the soul sand here, along with a couple of holes to help the water flow pull the skeletons into the corner and up the shaft to the drop. Fences are there to keep the water from going where I don't want it, but still allow the skeletons to move through to the bubble pipe.

The first water source

Followed by more, one on top of the other until I get to the appropriate height

The ladder on the side is only there temporarily while I'm creating the bubble pipe. I removed that and replaced everything unnecessary with cobblestone before I was done. This is a view looking down from above as I went up

And finally the finished product:

Note that I removed some stone that was in an earlier picture that I had left to make it easier to go in and out as I was adding a long column of water sources for the bubble pipe.

At the top is a long hallway directing the skeletons to a 23-block drop zone. At the bottom is a hopper going into a chest to collect the items and a small gap to kill the skeletons. Most of them only require a single hit. A few with armor take one or two more whacks with the sword.

I removed all the torches from the spawner room and blocked it off in the background.

Next I'll probably finish the tree farm. I'm not sure what else will be next, I still need to finish collecting all the sheep. I may also start work on a large horse barn. That will take some time though since I want to have room for all the colors and varieties of horses in the barn. Collecting all that many types could take a while as well.